


with gentle hands.

by murdertwinks



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blood and Gore, Control Issues, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Incest, M/M, Manipulation, Murder, Possessive Behavior, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, endgame damen/laurent/nicaise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:52:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdertwinks/pseuds/murdertwinks
Summary: Laurent was twelve years old when Auguste killed their uncle.





	with gentle hands.

**Author's Note:**

> if the tags were not explicit enough, fair warning: this fic deals with some extremely sensitive content. if you are easily bothered by anything mentioned above, this fic is not for you. read at your own discretion.

i.

 

Auguste’s hands remained around Uncle’s throat long after the man’s heart had stopped beating.

 

It was almost… cruel. Not in a sense of overt brutality, no: Laurent’s brother had been monomaniacal in his actions, too focused on eliminating his target to engage in any sort of gratuitous foreplay or torture. The cruelty came in how his unrelenting grip suggested that there still might have been some resistance left in Uncle’s body. That life still twitched somewhere within the man, that he might walk away from this and welcome Laurent once again into his bed - where he belonged. 

  
No one moved. They made a fascinating tableau, posing for an invisible audience that curated the morbid and the horrific. Two brothers, standing over a dead man on a dirty mattress, while a third cowered nail-bitten in the doorway. Violence hung in the air like an intangible sword of Damocles; it was obscene. The drama of it all, a pale throat bared to sharpened teeth.

 

Tension eased out of Auguste’s fingers in increments that Laurent could feel where his own fists were still pressed into his brother’s back. When the eldest finally unclenched his hands, it was as if he were fighting through the strained paralysis of rigor mortis within his own living flesh. Laurent sidestepped around Auguste, and this time he wasn’t shoved back. 

 

Oh, but Uncle. Laurent’s breath halted in his lungs -  _ there was something terribly wrong with his uncle. _

 

“Wh,” Laurent murmured, lower lip trembling. “What did you do?” 

 

The man on the mattress was made of wax, or plastic, or something other than blood and bones and sinew. His jaw hung adjar; the terrible twist of it, the way his cheeks didn’t form quite right around the opening of his mouth, the undeniable ugliness of it - his hard palate was black in the unlit bedroom, like hordes of spiders were amassing inside and waiting to scurry out. The eyes were swollen and unfocused and so alien to the predatory alertness that usually dwelled within. And he wasn’t moving.

 

“ _ What did you do, _ ” He bent at the waist, a hand shooting forward to rest on the Uncle’s still-warm chest. “Uncle?” Laurent asked, and Nicaise responded from behind him with a whimper. He moved his hand down to the man’s stomach, and as he leaned over, a ghastly gurgling rattle was pushed out of the corpse and shattered the darkness with its clamor.

 

Laurent screamed.

 

A commotion; Nicaise collapsed bodily into the doorframe, and as Auguste twisted to block him, the boy stumbled around him and fell to his knees before the bed. Laurent had no shirt for Nicaise to grab onto, so he wrapped a bony arm around Laurent’s calf.

 

“Nic-” Auguste stopped. 

 

Nicaise’s baby blue eyes were wide and distant, like a frosted pane of glass. “What now?” he asked.

 

Laurent tore away from the bed to fully face his older brother, hovering in the incredible vacuum in front of the open door. He watched as Auguste’s throat bobbed, trying to swallow around the magnitude of the moment. He licked his lips. “Do we still keep bedsheets in the hall closet?”

 

“I… I think,” Nicaise said. 

 

Auguste jerked his head in a terse nod. He ducked out of the room and hastened back with a ghostly sheet trailing in his wake. “Move.” He licked his lips again. “Move to the foot of the bed. Both of you.” On marionette strings, Laurent straightened and huddled with Nicaise. Auguste stepped forward, to the left of where the body’s legs dangled over the side of the bed. “I - need help.”

 

It was the sight of Nicaise shifting to help that startled Laurent out of his stupor. The blond swallowed and, as Auguste propped Uncle up into a sitting position, Laurent grabbed the man’s clammy ankles and swung them up over onto the mattress. It was now prone, lying lengthwise on the bed.

 

Seeing Auguste spread the sheet out on the floor, Laurent clasped Nicaise’s shoulder and turned them both away. There was the sound of fabric shifting, then a sickening  _ crunch _ as the body was rolled and landed face-down on the hardwood. Laurent’s gut clenched.

 

Laurent and Auguste - both gripping one end of the the sheet - dragged the corpse through the house to the garage, Nicaise opening doors and moving objects that might obstruct their path. Hysteria bubbled in Laurent’s chest. He couldn’t but be reminded of a birthday sleepover he had with Aimeric; the both of them carried Nicaise around in a similar fashion, as if he were an old nobleman escorted on a litter by palace slaves. Every time Nicaise bent over to pick up a broom or kick away a shoe, Laurent’s eyes wandered, in search of a cake. He giggled. It was lost somewhere between his tear-stained cheeks and the rigid back of his older brother.

 

They half-carried Uncle down the two steps to the concrete floor of the garage. In a night that existed only within vapors of smoke, the physical strain in Laurent’s back was an unrecognizable sensation to him. The coolness of the ground beneath the leathers of his bare feet, his briefs digging into the only clothed part of his body - foreign. Stage directions, perhaps, to feel. To react. Laurent wished he could remember his lines, if only to make Auguste  _ stop looking at him like that _ .

 

“Okay,” Auguste said. “Stand in the corner.”

 

“But-”

 

“Both of you. Like you’re in time-out.”

 

Nicaise went as if to cross his arms and argue, but Auguste’s expression was immovable. Laurent grabbed his little brother’s unblemished hand and led them to the open corner in the two-car garage. Nicaise shifted his weight from foot to foot.

 

“Are you cold?” Nicaise whispered.

 

Laurent blinked; he didn’t hear him. “What?”

 

Nicaise shot him a look from beneath his unruly brown curls. “You’re only in your undies, Lo.”

 

“Oh. I guess I am,” He was trembling.

 

Nicaise’s lips twitched, mirthful. A teacup cracked in Laurent’s heart.

 

Auguste rifled through shelves, metallic clanging and heavy breaths bouncing off the walls. 

 

“What is he doing?”

 

Laurent couldn’t describe exactly what his brother was doing, but he thought he understood. “I don’t know,” he said. Nicaise was only eight years old.

 

When Auguste clicked on the blowtorch, the two of them jumped. Nicaise cocked his head, but Laurent’s hand flew up to stop him from peeking. 

 

“Don’t,” Laurent said. 

 

Nicaise twitched. “I want to see!”

 

“You can’t,” Laurent continued. “It’s a game.”

 

“I’m too old for games,” Nicaise was interested, though.

 

“It’s a guessing game. If you turn around, you lose.”

 

Auguste clicked off the blowtorch. They waited. There was a hiss, a sizzle, a hacking cough. Then an odor reached their noses that Laurent would never forget for as long as he lived.

 

Auguste began to retch. 

 

“Stay here,” Laurent said, but Nicaise caught his arm.

 

“If I have to stand in the corner, so do you.”

 

“Nicky, please,” Laurent begged. “You need to be here for Auguste’s sake. It makes him feel better if you don’t look. Do it for him, okay?”

 

Nicaise paused, then nodded solemnly. “‘Kay.”

 

Laurent pulled away and turned around. The fluorescent light above hummed a low, sepulchral base pitch that had Laurent’s heart buzzing its wings and thrashing against his ribcage. It cast ugly colors about the tomb-like room. The bottle of the blowtorch had the same blinding vibrance as stepping inside after being in the sun for too long. The amorphous shadows around Uncle’s skull and legs were paler in hue than those that darkened Auguste’s face. Uncle’s body, prostrate. Auguste, an apocalyptic angel, crouched overtop. And a knife, heated orange-hot over flame and clenched in his brother’s fist.

 

Laurent glanced around. He snagged an oil rag off of a toolbox and jerkily tied it around Auguste’s nose and mouth. Auguste looked up at him, and though the lower half of his face was hidden, the corners of his eyes crinkled in gratitude. 

 

Laurent stepped back. He rocked on his heels, and dropped into a squat. Auguste didn’t tell him to go back with Nicaise. 

 

Here, Laurent saw in explicit detail the process by which his older brother was burning off their dead Uncle’s fingerprints. Auguste brought the flat of the amber blade down against the pad of the middle finger, a  _ squeak-singe-hiss _ as the heated metal burnt into the flesh. Smoke rose. A coppery tang danced across Laurent’s tongue as it broke through skin, and he buried his nose into his elbow. He coughed at the charcoal-grilled scent. 

 

After Auguste finished with one hand, he clicked on the blowtorch again and ran the side of the knife over the flame. 

 

“That stinks,” Nicaise commented, typical petulance absent.  

 

Laurent nodded, but Nicaise was still turned towards the corner. Like a good boy. 

 

Auguste finished. He stood up from his slouch and appeared to flounder for a moment. Eventually, he placed the searing knife atop the hood of the sedan occupying the other half of the space and untied the rag. He picked up a hammer he had sat next to himself, and grimaced. 

 

“Laurent,” he said, voice unsteady. “find the duct tape please.”

 

Laurent stepped up to the workbench and began to sift through boxes and drawers. Metal clanged around inside, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out what Auguste was doing. Laurent squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the edge of the workbench.  _ It’s just… porcelain. He’s just smashing in porcelain cups _ , he thought, nonsensically. After grounding himself, Laurent continued his search and retrieved the duct tape from the bottom drawer. 

 

Auguste was tilting Uncle’s chin up with one hand, the bloody hammer atop the unmoving chest. 

 

“Rip off a long strip for me, Lo,” Auguste said. Laurent gave a piece to Auguste, who grabbed the corner of it with his free hand. He frowned down at the body. 

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I - I need -” Auguste cut himself off. He inhaled deeply. “I need you to hold his head - like this.”

 

Laurent’s stomach revolted at the idea; it must have shown in his face, because Auguste’s brows drew up into a silent plea. Laurent tightened his lip, and crouched down. 

 

The brief exchange in hands jostled Uncle’s jaw enough that it bobbed open, and bubbles of blood streamed out of the corner of the mouth. Laurent increased the pressure on his two fingers holding it closed, and he cast his gaze upon Nicaise. He was shaking, now, still facing away but with hands over his eyes and whispering to himself. Laurent felt Auguste tape Uncle’s mouth shut.

 

It was done. He could feel it in his brother beside him.

 

“Okay Nicky, Lo. I want you to get your clothes on.”

 

.

 

Laurent didn’t quite doze off in the car. Lethargy seeped into his limbs like a heavy fog settling upon a heath of scraggly weeds and dry shrubbery as they zoomed further and further down the highway. Yet he couldn’t sleep. 

 

He was roused to full alertness when Auguste began to decelerate. Laurent sat up, careful of Nicaise’s head in his lap. He peered around the passenger seat headrest and watched as Auguste flipped off his headlights. The night was closer, then; this far out of the city, the streetlamps were sparse and their artificial lights winked weakly against the stars. Auguste pulled off the shoulder of the highway and drove behind a sound wall. Laurent flipped around in his seat; the only pair of headlights he saw were at least a quarter mile back. 

 

Auguste shut off the ignition and they sat in unhallowed stillness. Nicaise held his breath. 

 

“I’m going to go dig the hole now,” Auguste said to the steering wheel. “If anything happens, yell for me; I won’t go beyond earshot.” 

 

“Okay, Auguste,” Laurent whispered. 

 

Auguste sighed and swiveled to reach out and ruffle Laurent’s hair. He wore a small smile. “Try to get some sleep, you two.”

 

“‘Kay,” Nicaise mumbled into Laurent’s shirt.

 

“I love you.”

 

“Love you too,” they replied, and Auguste stepped out of the car. They waited, unmoving, numb to the sounds of their brother opening the trunk and grabbing the shovel. Laurent wondered if it was still atop Uncle’s gut, or if it shifted around during the drive. 

 

Auguste trod away from the road, growing fainter and fainter. The susurrus of grass transitioned to snapped twigs and fallen leaves; it was the only indication that he had passed under the treeline. He was wearing his high school track shoes.

 

Uncle’s body was a human-shaped hunk of metal lumbering in the trunk like an icy bomb; cold seeped from it into Laurent’s veins as sure as a cannonball in his lap. 

 

No, not a cannonball - a brother. Nicaise curled towards him, doe-eyes round and moon-like in the dark. “When did he get home?” he whispered. He wasn’t talking about the dead man laying next to them.

 

Laurent snaked one arm around the boy’s waist, the other coming up to bury in his brown locks. “Earlier tonight,” Laurent replied, equally as quiet.

 

“Why?”  _ Why? _ “He... Auguste said he wasn’t gonna come home for another week.”

 

Laurent exhaled through his nose and admired the way a few strands of Nicaise’s hair danced with it. “I think.” He swallowed. “I think he wanted to surprise us. For my birthday.”

 

Nicaise hugged Laurent tighter. “Is he going back?” he asked, voice softer than a moth’s wingbeat. 

 

“I don’t know.” Laurent wasn’t sure which option he feared more.

 

.

 

Auguste returned to retrieve one dead man and two living boys. “We need to carry it,” he said as he helped Laurent and Nicaise out of the car. “We can’t make it look like someone dragged a body into the woods.” 

 

“Cops can tell?” Nicaise didn’t appear to believe his oldest brother - either that, or he wasn’t too thrilled about the work that was to come. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

They popped open the trunk once more. The body was tightly bound in the bedsheet with bands of duct tape securing it. Auguste hefted all two hundred pounds of it over his shoulders and led their procession into the woods. 

 

Laurent, mind misty and eyes dry with exhaustion, was taken back to when his third grade class acquired caterpillars to raise and study. The chrysalids the five wriggling creatures developed were not unlike the bundled form the three of them carried now. He learned the life cycle of a butterfly, from egg to larva to pupa to adult. They discussed dietary needs, habitats, diversity of different species. 

 

Four butterflies emerged, wilted and worn-down from the burdens of metamorphosing. His teacher taught the students how a butterfly would hang upside-down from its chrysalis to allow blood to circulate into its wings, and after two hours, they were vibrant and stunning as stained glass. 

 

The fifth one never hatched, dying in a coffin of its own creation and frozen between two states of being. Laurent never forgot it. 

 

The hole Auguste dug was amidst a collection of fungi-covered logs and an overturned stump. Roots stuck out, edges hacked away by the sharp edge of the shovel. Auguste dropped the body in without ceremony. Nicaise’s head lolled on Laurent’s shoulder, and he searched for his hand to hold. 

 

As Laurent watched his brother dump soil into their uncle’s grave, a truth settled in his gut like a lead sinker cut from a fishing line. All living things are returned to the ground.

 

Some just hastened the journey.


End file.
